


(Not) Just A Man

by renecdote



Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Batman mythos, Bruce encourages this thinking, Everything thinks Batman is superhuman, Gen, Humour, Rumours, Superheroes, Superpowers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-09
Updated: 2017-10-09
Packaged: 2019-01-11 00:32:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,008
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12311112
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/renecdote/pseuds/renecdote
Summary: Batman: the man, (but more importantly) the myth.





	(Not) Just A Man

**Author's Note:**

> For a prompt by oh-toasty on tumblr: Hi! I don't know if you're taking requests right now, but if you are I would love to read something about how everyone knows Batman is around, but nobody really knows anything about him. They all just assume that if he's out there he must have superpowers like Superman and Wonder Woman and Bruce just never corrects them. Like, he just lets everyone think Batman has superpowers hence why in the JL trailer Barry asks what his power is.

"What's his deal?" Superboy asks. His arms are crossed and he's glaring at the doorway Batman just swanned out of like some kind of mystical overlord. Clark is briefly thankful his younger clone doesn't seem to have heat vision, otherwise he might be remodelling parts of the Fortress. To say that the new hero's first meeting with Batman had gone well would be drastically overstating things.

"He's Batman."

Superboy just stares at him. "Yeah but what are his powers? Mind control? Invisibility?”

Clark shrugs, grinning a little as he repeats, "He's Batman."

\--

BATMAN IMMORTAL? the headline screams at him when he sits down at the dining table for breakfast. To his left, Tim is grinning into his muesli, obviously having read the front page article and found it highly entertaining. 

"It could be true, you know," his second youngest says. "That thug did shoot you in the head and you just walked away."

"He  _ thought _ he shot me in the head," Bruce corrects, skipping to the business section to read something other than gossip and speculation. Well, other than  _ just _ gossip and speculation because it is still a Gotham newspaper and if there's one thing Gothamites love to do it's gossip and speculate - especially about Bruce Wayne and Batman. Usually separately, thank goodness. "You were there, you know he missed."

Tim rolls his eyes. "I'm just saying, maybe it'd be good to spread the rumour that you can't die. Might make some of the villains give up."

Bruce just grunts. From the pleased look on his son's face though, he knows he's going to consider it. In a world where every other hero has a meta gimmick, it wouldn't be a bad idea to make people think he has an edge, even if it is entirely fictitious.

Tim waits until he's just taken a sip of coffee to add, "If nothing else, I bet Ra's will get a kick out of it." 

\--

"I'm telling you, Pete, I saw him walk right through a wall like it wasn't even there."

"You're being ridiculous man, everyone knows his thing is flying not phasing."

"Well Superman has more than one power, why can't he?"

"But superman ain't one of those metas, he's an  _ alien _ ."

"..."

"..."

"...I heard Eric kicked him in the groin and broke his own foot last month."

\--

Whispers follow Batman through the halls of Titan's Tower when he arrives for a scheduled check-in on the training of the young heroes. Just because they've been given independence, doesn't mean their heroing is going to go completely unsupervised.

When he gets to the training centre he stops just inside the door because-

Are those garlands of  _ garlic _ decorating the walls?

One by one the sparring teens in the room stop and fall silent, all staring at him with a mix of poorly disguise fear, curiosity and amusement. The latter is mostly just Red Robin, standing beside Kid Flash and radiating quiet glee. Bruce zeroes in on his young former partner, who doesn't look guilty or abashed in the slightest. 

“Today’s lesson,” Bruce intones, striding further into the room. “Is on what to do when you encounter opponents of the mythical variety.” He scans each the young faces watching him with rapt attention. “Have any of you fought a vampire before?”

Red Robin snickers.

\--

“I do not understand why you encourage these rumours, father.”

Bruce grunts without looking up from the batarang he's putting together. Something Dick had mentioned about Wonder Woman had caught his attention the other day. It had been the timing more than the comment, though, delivered at just the moment when Bruce was glancing over the sodium pentothal in the pharmaceutical warehouse they'd been searching. If he could engineer a miniature batarang to disperse the truth serum without detection...

“It's ridiculous,” Damian continues to rant, arms crossed and brows lowered as he leans over Bruce’s shoulder. “People should fear you because you are highly skilled and- and fearsome! Not because of some [inane] masquerade involving a fire retardant suit and a blowtorch, or a few miniaturised fireworks and a foreign language, or a cowl with built-in laser pointers-”

Bruce’s lips twitch into the barest hint of a smile at the hidden compliment buried beneath the indignant tone. “Spreading false information about my abilities has strategic value. Those who fight me won't be able to prepare effective offensive or defensive measures if they do not know what exactly they should be prepared for.”

“Don't let him fool you!” Tim calls over from the main computer monitor. Bruce is sure he finished whatever he was working on ten minutes ago and just stuck around in case the opportunity for mischief cropped up. “B only does it because he thinks it's fun!”

Damian splutters. As though he thinks Bruce is incapable of such human things as  _ fun _ .

Well. There was that android myth that started spreading through the younger hero community a year or so ago… No one has ever confessed to starting it, but Bruce is sure Jason was involved.

\--

After several weeks, the weight of the cowl is no longer cumbersome or unfamiliar. The padding settles on his cheekbones and hugs his jaw in just the right way. He's even got used to the slight peripheral vision impairment and decreased mobility in a fight. 

He still hates the cape, though. Even if it is fun for dramatic landings on the roof of the GCPD building.

“They're saying you're a time traveler,” Gordon says. No explanation of who ‘they’ is; rookies, criminals, speculating reporters. Everyone has a theory. “A younger Batman come from the past.”

Dick lets the light from the signal catch his smile. He is, after all, the easy going Batman; no need to hide his amusement in the dark. “I’m thinking something more along the lines of Benjamin Button,” he says. “You think they'll buy age regression?”

Gordon takes a drag from his cigarette. The smoke twists and curls through the night sky before dissipating above the signal. “Son, at this point, I think they'll believe anything.”

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me on tumblr [here](http://tantalum-cobalt.tumblr.com/).


End file.
